PGA Tour of Australia announces end of year schedule; with a gap for World Cup?

The PGA of Australia has announced the dates for the 2014 Australian Open, Australian Masters and Australian PGA Championship.

The 2014 Australian Masters and 2014 Emirates Australian Open will again run on consecutive weekends in November after the Australian PGA recently announced its end of year schedule.

The inaugural Fiji International will kick off the Tour’s most lucrative tournaments in August followed later in the year by the Perth International (23-26 Oct).

The 2014 Australian Masters (20-23 Nov) will be played at Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne, the 2014 Emirates Australian Open (27-30 Nov) will be played at the newly revamped Australian Golf Club in Sydney and the Australian PGA Championship (11-14 Dec) will return to Royal Pines on the Gold Coast.

Interestingly, there is a gap in the schedule (just like when these dates were announced last year) that may indicate that the Tour is hoping the World Cup of Golf may return to Australian shores in 2014.

From the press release:

The PGA Tour of Australasia will also stage the Isuzu Queensland Open (28-31 Aug), South Pacific Open Championship (10-13 Sept), John Hughes Nexus Risk Services WA Open (16-19 Oct), WA Goldfields PGA Championship (30 Oct -2 Nov) and the NSW Open (13-16 Nov).

“This year is shaping up to be another incredibly successful season for the PGA Tour of Australasia,” said Brian Thorburn, Chief Executive Officer of the PGA of Australia.

“2014 will see the Tour travel to Natadola Bay in Fiji for the first time. With hometown hero Vijay Singh already signed on for the tournament we are excited by the opportunity to grow the game in this region.”

“It will also see the return of our oldest and most prestigious titles and I like all golf fans will be intrigued to see how the season plays out after Adam Scott came so close to capturing the elusive Triple Crown in 2013.”

All tournaments on the PGA Tour of Australasia offer Official World Golf Rankings points and in addition Professionals in 2014 will be competing for more than AU$8.4million in prizemoney.

This is an increase of approximately AU$1.2million on the previous season.

To date in 2014 four tournaments have already been played with New Zealander Gareth Paddison winning his second Victorian PGA Championship title, Anthony Summers and Dimi Papadatos claiming their maiden Tour victories at the Coca-Cola Queensland PGA Championship and New Zealand Open respectively while Matthew Griffin claimed his first title on homesoil at the Oates Victorian Open.

22-year-old Papadatos currently leads the race to claim the Norman Von Nida Medal, he sits on top the Order of Merit (OOM) with AU$143,967.

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